


Surfacing

by SegaBarrett



Category: Fear the Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: AU, M/M, Season 3 Finale
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-09
Updated: 2019-10-09
Packaged: 2020-11-28 15:53:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20969126
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SegaBarrett/pseuds/SegaBarrett
Summary: Strand knows this is a bad idea, but he’s doing it anyway.





	Surfacing

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Chaosprincess](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chaosprincess/gifts).

> Don’t own Fear and make no money.

Strand had spent his life looking out for himself, until the day he met Nicholas Clark. Damn his pet, damn him and his own (rabid, no doubt) puppy dog Troy, always at the hip and ready to attack with any or no provocation. 

Madison had been right - hadn’t she? No need for liabilities now and that was what Troy Otto was, one big walking liability and a ticking time bomb tick tick ticking. 

So why was he out here, about to jump in the water, going towards instead of away from the ruins of the dam, to find Troy Otto?

Damn Nick, damn him damn him. 

He’d obligated himself all over again, without trying to, without wanting to. Who knew if there was anything left of the remaining Otto to find and if there was - if somehow he had lived - who knew what a hammer to the brain could do to an already unstable mind and it wasn’t as if they were around the block from Johns Hopkins either. 

All of the logic, the reasons, the things Strand would have said to Alicia or Daniel or any of the others if they had suggested this stupid, stupid idea, faded away at the image of what Nick’s face would look like with his eyes lit up at having Troy returned to him. 

“Damn you, Clark,” Strand muttered. “At least I’ll go in with a can-do attitude.”

Strand took in a breath - he wasn’t afraid, no, he was just willing to be as critical of his own failings as on anyone else’s - kneaded his hands together in a point and dove. 

Little aftershocks of the explosion that had taken out the dam were still pattering around him, like he was back in one of the earthquakes that had become commonplace for most of his life.

It was hopeless, stupid, hopeless, but then again Nick had that infuriating way of making everything hopeful, everything possible. 

He searched the water - it was black as coal, black as Madison’s damn heart when she had done this thing, impossible to find a pale white figure in there. Troy had always seemed a bit ethereal, ghostly, translucent. Not really there. 

Strand pushed forward - front stroke, breast stroke, picturing the sun hitting him and lighting the way as if he had hopped off of the Abigail (Maybe he hoped to find him down there too) instead of into Dante’s Inferno to pull out one lost soul. 

Damn them all to hell, damn every single one of them except - except for this one. 

Strand’s hand hit rock, no, not rock, skull. The contours of a sloped forehead. 

Hammerhead, Strand mused as he yanked, pulling the figure up with him - letting out the breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding. 

Fruitless, dumb dumb dumb, so he’d found Troy’s body - or hell, a body, anybody, what good was that going to do? 

The body shook, and Strand turned his head, ready to let go and toss the walker - for it had to be, logically, didn’t it? Back down to the depths. 

And then he coughed. A sharp, sputtering cough and suddenly Strand was very aware of just how much Troy looked like a kid, his whole body rattling as he spat out water again and again. 

“I’ve got you,” he said, pressing against the boy’s chest and helping him to breathe - don’t give up now don’t you dare give up now - “Can you swim back?”

“I don’t swim,” Troy managed in a rasping tone, not can’t but don’t. As if it wasn’t part of his programming. 

“Grab on,” Strand said with exasperation, “and don’t do any weird shit.”

“Where’s Nick?” Troy inquired, calmly, as he grabbed on to Strand’s hip as they began to make their way - forward thrust, forward thrust. 

“I don’t know,” Strand replied. He knew that Nick wasn’t dead, though, and that was a good enough start. Now, just to get his pet’s pet back to him... and maybe ban Madison from the toolbox for good this time. “Let’s go.”


End file.
